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In The Number Ones, I\u2019m reviewing each single #1 single within the historical past of the<\/em> Billboard Hot 100, beginning with the chart\u2019s starting, in 1958, and dealing my approach up into the current.<\/em><\/p>\n Kelly Clarkson beat the percentages. It wasn\u2019t simply that Clarkson received the primary season of American Idol<\/em>, defeating the tens of hundreds of different pop-star hopefuls who auditioned for the present. It was every thing that got here after. When Clarkson received the present, her coronation track \u201cA Moment Like This<\/a>\u201d grew to become a #1 hit by design. That wasn\u2019t actually a shock. But it was<\/em> a shock that Kelly Clarkson continued to crank out hits, that she carved out a long-running profession as a no-shit A-list pop star. That accomplishment was arguably much more unlikely than successful her season within the first place.<\/p>\n Clay Aiken didn’t beat the percentages. For one factor, Aiken didn’t win his season of American Idol<\/em>. For many of the present\u2019s second season, the slight adult-contempo balladeer was reportedly forward within the voting tallies. In the ultimate week of the season, although, Aiken couldn\u2019t shut the deal. The Alabama-raised soul singer Ruben Studdard squeaked previous Aiken within the finale and took the American Idol<\/em> victory by a slender margin. Aiken did, nonetheless, win the chart battle; \u201cThis Is The Night,\u201d the observe that may\u2019ve been Aiken\u2019s coronation track, made it to #1 over Studdard\u2019s precise coronation track \u201cFlying Without Wings.\u201d But Clay Aiken didn\u2019t actually make it as a pop star. <\/p>\n For a couple of years, Clay Aiken bought loads of information. A few follow-up singles did fairly properly on the Hot 100. Aiken toured a good quantity, and he put in loads of appearances on loads of TV exhibits. But that TV fame ultimately led to increasingly more stints on actuality exhibits after which to an entire different profession within the public eye. (In Aiken\u2019s case, that profession would take him into politics, although he has but to win something there.) The Clay Aiken trajectory, far more than the Kelly Clarkson saga, would develop into the archetype for singers who got here from the vastly widespread competitors exhibits that also make up a big chunk of the shrinking network-TV panorama. But by advantage of timing, Clay Aiken did handle to attain a #1 hit, one thing that only some different singing-show contestants can declare. Aiken\u2019s sole chart-topper may as properly not exist anymore, however he\u2019s within the report books.<\/p>\n The second season of American Idol<\/em> began in January 2003, only some months after the primary season ended. By then, Idol<\/em> was already probably the most widespread exhibits on TV. Idol<\/em> usually drew upwards of 20 million viewers, a quantity that\u2019s frankly unthinkable at this time. In its conquest of the American monoculture that also existed, Idol<\/em> confirmed itself to be simply as heartless as some other establishment on this nation. Frenchie Davis, extensively thought of one of many second season\u2019s most gifted singers, was disqualified after previous topless photographs surfaced. Another contestant, Corey Clark, was additionally booted from the present, ostensibly for failing to inform the Idol<\/em> producers a couple of previous arrest. Clark later claimed that he\u2019d actually been kicked off for having an affair with Idol<\/em> choose Paula Abdul, somebody who\u2019s been on this column a bunch of instances. (Abdul and the present\u2019s producers denied it.)<\/p>\n Like so many American Idol<\/em> contestants, Clay Aiken had a readymade backstory about how he didn\u2019t even intend to audition for the present within the first place. Clay Aiken was born Clay Grissom in Raleigh, North Carolina; he legally modified his final title at 19 due to his estrangement from his abusive beginning father. (Donna Summer\u2019s model of \u201cMacArthur Park<\/a>\u201d was the #1 track in America on the day of Aiken\u2019s beginning.) Aiken was raised Southern Baptist, and he began singing in his church\u2019s youth choir. Later on, he joined the Raleigh Boychoir, and he typically sang the nationwide anthem earlier than native sporting occasions. When Aiken was a youngster, his mom purchased him studio time as a gift, and he recorded a couple of demo CDs of Christian pop songs. But Aiken wasn\u2019t making an attempt to be a singer; he had a special profession in thoughts.<\/p>\n After working at YMCA summer season camps as a youngster, Clay Aiken discovered what he thought can be his life\u2019s path. Aiken studied particular schooling at UNC Charlotte, and he labored instead instructor for teenagers with autism. Aiken additionally obtained a job as an assistant for a child with autism, and that child\u2019s household pushed Aiken to audition for American Idol<\/em>. Aiken had really simply despatched in an audition tape for one more actuality present, The Amazing Race<\/em>, however the child\u2019s mom was adamant that Aiken ought to be on Idol<\/em> as an alternative. In Fred Bronson\u2019s Billboard Book Of Number 1 Hits<\/em>, Aiken says, \u201cShe kept bugging me. I said, \u2018Fine, I\u2019ll do it if you stop nagging me.’\u201d (Incidentally, the final version of Bronson\u2019s guide ends with \u201cThis Is The Night,\u201d so that is the final time I\u2019ll get to make use of that essential useful resource once I\u2019m writing these columns. If the column out of the blue will get an entire lot shittier, that\u2019s why.)<\/p>\n The native Charlotte Fox affiliate held its personal sponsored American Idol<\/em> contest, and Aiken didn\u2019t win that one. But the child\u2019s mom, the one who\u2019d pushed Aiken to audition within the first place, mentioned that Aiken ought to attempt once more, so Aiken went right down to Atlanta for an open audition quickly afterwards. In Atlanta, Aiken sang Heatwave\u2019s 1977 ballad \u201cAlways And Forever<\/a>\u201d for Simon Cowell and Randy Jackson. (\u201cAlways And Forever\u201d peaked at #9. It\u2019s a 4. Heatwave\u2019s highest-charting single, 1977\u2019s \u201cBoogie Nights<\/a>,\u201d peaked at #2. It\u2019s an 8.) <\/p>\n Clay Aiken seemed like a complete herb at his audition. He was pale and gawky and giggly, and Simon Cowell appeared fairly skeptical of the concept he had any type of future on the present. After listening to Aiken sing, Cowell mentioned, \u201cYou don\u2019t look like a pop star, but you\u2019ve got a great voice. So now what?\u201d Aiken made it by to the subsequent spherical of the competitors, and he shortly let the individuals at Fox make him over into one thing that higher resembled their concept of a pop star. He obtained contact lenses. His hair grew to become progressively spikier. He stopped carrying a pooka-shell necklace. It virtually wasn\u2019t sufficient. Aiken was minimize from the present within the early rounds, however he was invited again for one thing known as Wild Card week, the place he sang Elton John\u2019s \u201cDon\u2019t Let The Sun Go Down On Me<\/a>.\u201d The judges all commented on how Aiken had labored on growing his common enchantment, and the present\u2019s viewers voted him into the highest 12.<\/p>\n In his run on American Idol<\/em>, Clay Aiken sang an entire lot of ballads: \u201cOpen Arms,\u201d \u201cSomewhere Out There,\u201d \u201cAt This Moment<\/a>.\u201d This stuff couldn\u2019t have presumably been additional faraway from what was taking place in precise American pop music on the time. There was a deep disconnect there. On the pop charts, 50 Cent was working issues. On Idol<\/em>, Clay Aiken, principally the diametric reverse of fifty Cent in each conceivable approach, might emerge as a breakout star. That divide simply goes to indicate how audiences for pop music and audiences for community singing exhibits should not the identical factor. Even if Idol<\/em> had needed to find a 50 Cent kind, no person concerned within the present would\u2019ve had any concept the right way to do it. They knew the right way to promote a Clay Aiken, although.<\/p>\n When Clive Davis obtained concerned with Idol<\/em>, a part of his rationale was that he needed to return middle-of-the-road ballads to the American pop mainstream. He didn\u2019t actually succeed. Idol<\/em> might give an artist like Clay Aiken successful or two, nevertheless it couldn\u2019t change the prevailing course of issues. Instead, Idol<\/em> grew to become an odd little island of sleepy pageant-singer balladry that sometimes bubbled its approach onto the charts. Clay Aiken may\u2019ve been the best avatar for that entire phenomenon. For a minute there, Clay Aiken did handle to develop into some model of a pop star. Even at his peak, although, Aiken appeared fully shut off from completely every thing else taking place inside pop music.<\/p>\n The present\u2019s season wasn\u2019t even over when Aiken\u2019s voice first appeared on a pop hit. Partway by the season, the contestants launched a model of \u201cGod Bless The USA<\/a>,\u201d the cornpone nationalist signifier that Lee Greenwood had first launched in 1984. Greenwood\u2019s unique had peaked at #16 on the Hot 100, and it\u2019s his highest-charting single by far. The ghastly American Idol<\/em> singalong model by some means made all of it the way in which as much as #4. (It\u2019s a 1.)<\/p>\n As season two of Idol<\/em> rumbled towards its conclusion, the remaining 4 singers had been all assigned their potential coronation songs. In the primary season, all prime 4 contestants recorded variations of \u201cA Moment Like This.\u201d For the second season, producers switched issues up: They had two<\/em> songs to divide among the many 4 contestants. Ruben Studdard and Kimberly Locke each obtained \u201cFlying Without Wings.\u201d \u201cFlying Without Wings\u201d had been a UK chart-topper for the Irish boy band Westlife<\/a>, a Simon Cowell challenge, in 1999. (Westlife\u2019s solely Hot 100 hit, 2000\u2019s \u201cSwear It Again,\u201d peaked at #20.) Ruben Studdard recorded a gospel-inflected R&B model of \u201cFlying Without Wings,\u201d and his take, launched on the identical day as Clay Aiken\u2019s \u201cThis Is The Night,\u201d peaked at #2. (It\u2019s a 4.) Studdard ended up as the one winner of the primary 5 American Idol<\/em> winners who didn\u2019t land a #1 hit of his personal. Ruben Studdard managed yet one more top-10 hit earlier than falling right into a strong profession as a really area of interest entertainer. <\/p>\n \u201cThis Is The Night,\u201d then again, was written particularly for American Idol<\/em>. During the present\u2019s first season, Desmond Child, a man whose work has appeared on this column a couple of instances, ran a songwriting camp. Child didn\u2019t have a hand in writing \u201cThis Is The Night,\u201d however the track got here out of that camp. The melody for \u201cThis Is The Night\u201d got here from the Montreal-born rocker Aldo Nova, who had a little bit of a run within the early \u201980s earlier than turning into one among C\u00e9line Dion\u2019s go-to collaborators. (Nova\u2019s highest-charting single, 1982\u2019s \u201cFantasy,\u201d peaked at #23, and Nova additionally performed guitar on his buddy Jon Bon Jovi\u2019s 1990 chart-topper \u201cBlaze Of Glory<\/a>.\u201d)<\/p>\n One of Aldo Nova\u2019s \u201cThis Is Is The Night\u201d co-writers was Chris Braide, a British songwriter who\u2019d had a quick and unsuccessful early-\u201990s solo-artist stint and who\u2019d gone on to put in writing for S Club 7 and Will Young, the primary winner of the British present Pop Idol<\/em>. Later on, Braide would write for Shakira and Sia, two artists who will ultimately seem on this column. Gary Burr, the opposite co-writer, got here from nation music. His greatest pre-Idol<\/em> success was 1982\u2019s \u201cLove\u2019s Been A Little Bit Hard On Me,\u201d a #7 Hot 100 hit for Juice Newton. (It\u2019s a 5.)<\/p>\n It\u2019s fairly clear that Aldo Nova, Chris Braide, and Gary Burr had been going for one thing similar to \u201cA Moment Like This\u201d once they wrote \u201cThis Is The Night.\u201d It\u2019s a track that would solely make sense in a reality-show context. The lyrics are all imprecise, swooping uplift, and so they positive appear to explain what it\u2019s prefer to win a actuality present: \u201cLift me up in your eyes! If you told me that this is what heaven is, well, you\u2019d be right!\u201d The track is structurally sound, nevertheless it\u2019s additionally an enormous, clean nothing, virtually by design. When Clay Aiken sang the track on the ultimate evening of American Idol<\/em> competitors, each Simon Cowell and Randy Jackson, by means of praising Aiken\u2019s efficiency, went out of their method to say that they didn\u2019t just like the track. Simon: \u201cIt was like American Idol: The Musical<\/em>.\u201d Randy: \u201cI hated that song, and I hope they don\u2019t make that your first single.\u201d They made it his first single.<\/p>\n There\u2019s precisely one second on \u201cThis Is The Night\u201d that I type of like. When the refrain first kicks in, as Clay Aiken sings the \u201clift me up\u201d bit, an influence chord rings out behind him. That\u2019s it. Aiken recorded \u201cThis Is the Night\u201d with producer Steve Mac, who\u2019d come from the Pop Idol<\/em> system and who\u2019d co-produced \u201cA Moment Like This.\u201d The association takes a generic track and makes it much more generic. Aiken\u2019s vocal is completely easy and nice, however there\u2019s not precisely loads of persona in it. I didn\u2019t watch greater than a few minutes of Aiken\u2019s Idol<\/em> season, so I by no means actually realized what anybody noticed within the child. \u201cThis Is The Night\u201d didn’t reply that query for me.<\/p>\n Clay Aiken\u2019s followers apparently known as themselves Claymates? I hate that. That\u2019s the worst fan-army title I\u2019ve ever heard. Clay Aiken didn’t win American Idol<\/em>. In asserting Ruben Studdard\u2019s victory, Ryan Seacrest exaggerated how slender the margin had been, which led to an entire goofy little controversy over whether or not Studdard had actually received or whether or not the cellphone traces had simply been overwhelmed. (The entire \u201closer\u2019s supporters refuse to accept result\u201d storyline would proceed to reverberate by American life within the years forward.) The incensed Claymates ran out to purchase \u201cThis Is The Night\u201d in huge portions. The single, packaged with Aiken\u2019s model of Simon And Garfunkel\u2019s \u201cBridge Over Troubled Water<\/a>,\u201d bought practically 400,000 copies in its first week \u2014 essentially the most gross sales of any single in a single week since Elton John\u2019s \u201cCandle In The Wind 1997<\/a>.\u201d After a couple of weeks, \u201cThis Is The Night\u201d was platinum. The track didn\u2019t really want radio play to beat the Hot 100.<\/p>\n A couple of months after the American Idol<\/em> season finale, Clay Aiken launched his debut album Measure Of A Man<\/em>. The lead single was \u201cInvisible,\u201d a deeply shitty uptempo joint that had been co-written by Desmond Child; the Irish boy band D-Side recorded it simply earlier than Aiken. D-Side\u2019s model<\/a> was an enormous UK hit, however Aiken\u2019s take peaked at #37. Aiken did higher when he launched his model of Neil Sedaka\u2019s 1973 track \u201cSolitaire<\/a>\u201d as a single. (Sedaka\u2019s unique \u201cSolitaire\u201d didn\u2019t chart, however the Carpenters took it to #17<\/a> in 1975.) Aiken had sung \u201cSolitaire\u201d on Idol<\/em>, and the studio model of his cowl grew to become successful, peaking at #4. (It\u2019s a 4.) Eventually, \u201cSolitaire\u201d changed \u201cThis Is The Night\u201d because the bonus observe on Aiken\u2019s Measure Of A Man<\/em> album. \u201cThis Is The Night\u201d is on streaming providers as a single, nevertheless it\u2019s not on the model of Measure Of A Man<\/em> that you may stream. Maybe that\u2019s why \u201cThis Is The Night\u201d has virtually fully disappeared from the world. It\u2019s virtually actually the Twenty first-century Hot 100 chart-topper that you simply\u2019re least prone to encounter lately, in any context.<\/p>\n Clay Aiken hasn\u2019t been on the Hot 100 since \u201cSolitaire.\u201d We received\u2019t see Clay Aiken on this column once more, however we\u2019ll see lots extra American Idol<\/em> fallout. Measure Of A Man<\/em> went double platinum. Aiken adopted it with a platinum 2005 Christmas album and with 2006\u2019s A Thousand Different Ways<\/em>, an LP largely comprised of covers that Clive Davis picked out for Aiken. Every new Clay Aiken report bought slightly bit lower than the one which got here earlier than. Aiken saved touring and popping up on actuality exhibits for a couple of years, and that entire interval of his profession in all probability culminated in one other second-place end on a actuality present that drew large score: Aiken was the primary runner-up to winner Arsenio Hall on Celebrity Apprentice<\/em> in 2012. That\u2019s additionally the yr that Aiken launched his final album. Aiken has additionally carried out some stage appearing. In 2008, he had a four-month run in Spamalot<\/em> on Broadway, and he\u2019s carried out some regional stuff since then.<\/p>\n In 2008, Clay Aiken got here out as homosexual. That similar yr, he additionally grew to become a father; he and his associate had a child by a surrogate. A short while later, Aiken grew to become a politician. In 2014, Aiken ran for Congress as a Democrat in a solidly Republican North Carolina district. He misplaced. Aiken defended his former Apprentice<\/em> boss Donald Trump from accusations of racism whereas Trump was working for president, after which he apologized and known as himself \u201ca fucking dumbass\u201d after Trump refused to sentence the racist yahoos who went buckshit in Charlottesville. Aiken ran for Congress once more this yr, and he completed third in a Democratic major. I don\u2019t know what Clay Aiken will do subsequent. He looks as if a pleasant individual, however frankly, I\u2019m not that invested. <\/p>\n GRADE:<\/strong> 3\/10<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n